Night Before
by GRINtelligencer
Summary: It's the night before the Dark Tournament. They have no idea what could be coming or even if they're going to live through it. This warrants drinks. Many drinks. As the alcohol rolls on, they start talking. Oneshot.


**The Night Before**

Dane Soar

I wondered what the four would do the night before the DT. Would they be nervous? Or would they drink a lot? I figured they would be both. No stupid drunk actions though, but there is drinking.

Oh yes. A little taste of yaoi, K/H, but nothing obvious. This isn't really the night for it.

**----------------------------------------------------**

It was the night before the Dark Tournament and it wasn't sitting well with the team invited to appear as guests. To say they were nervous was an understatement. But not an exaggeration.

You would think that the tension would be so thick that you could cut it with a knife. You would think that they would be sitting around, tapping fingers, or pacing around the temple, that they would be talking in terse voices, and snapping at each other.

If it had been any other group of people in the same situation, that might have been true. But this was the Rekai Tantei, and they had their own way of showing nerves. The drinking was just a side effect, of course.

Kurama cradled the glass in two hands as he eyed the floor. Hiei was also doing the same, but with one hand.

"Is he breathing?" asked Yusuke from the armchair where he was slumped with a beer. A full ashtray on the table spoke testimony to him having been there in a while, and his slump spoke testimony to no energy, thus no movement.

"No, I think that's just a spasm," said Kurama, looking at the groaning form on the floor. He took another sip from his glass and blinked…hard. It was strong stuff he and Hiei were drinking.

Yusuke had joined in the outer room on Genkai's temple bringing his cigarettes and beer with him. He knew the three of them would be here today of all days, after Kurama and Hiei finished pounding Kuwabara into the ground in preparation for the Tournament, and had joined them after his. The night before the Dark Tournament warranted drinks all around.

Though joining the three of them could more easily be defined as Yusuke falling into the armchair and not been able to get enough energy to get up.

"I told him he wouldn't be able to handle that stuff," Yusuke commented. "Poor bastard shoulda stuck to beer."

On the floor Kuwabara twitched again, his arm jittering over the floor. They watched with interest, but not much pity.

Hiei took a large swig of his drink, and shivered. The ice in his glass clinked.

Eyeing the stuff warily, Yusuke asked. "What is that stuff anyway?"

"Purely demon alcohol," Hiei told him with the trace of smile. "It's said it can kill a normal human with a single sip."

All eyes went to Kuwabara again. "He drunk a whole glass, right? Four fingers worth and all at once."

"I said a 'normal' human." pointed out Hiei.

"Oh."

The attention of all those awake and conscious shifted to elsewhere. Outside, through the open sliding door birds sang happily. Inside, Yusuke scowled angrily. "Stupid loud birds."

"Enjoy it now. Once the Tournament starts you'll be both dead, and there's no more birds then," Hiei said darkly into his drink.

Stubbing out his cigarette, Yusuke snorted. "Thanks Hiei, really comforts me." He lit another cigarette, feeling the need for more nicotine.

"It wasn't supposed to."

"Arg…" said Kuwabara on the floor, but he was ignored by the group in general.

Kurama drained his drink, twitched, and then sighed. "About the Tournament, do you think we would even have a chance on not getting slaughtered?"

"Do we have a choice?" Retorted Yusuke.

"We could just walk away, you know, if the odds seem to much against us. It wouldn't be too hard."

"You guys could, but I can't. I'd have to have a fight with Toguro sooner or later, even if I didn't want to."

"Mm."

Taking a swig of his beer, Yusuke let his arm flop back listlessly. "Besides, if you guys walk away, I'll have no team."

"Even with us, you're still a person short," said Hiei, sipping from his glass. "Do you have any plans about the fifth fighter?"

"I've got some ideas. Don't worry about it."

"I'm worried." Kuwabara sat up and rubbed his head. "Oh, and why am I on the floor? I don't remember that."

"You should be. And you wouldn't, " said Hiei.

Nodding at the smashed glass on the floor, Kurama added. "And you hit your head on the floor after you drank that."

"I did?"

"Yes."

A headache was lurking in the wings for Kuwabara, but he ignored it right now. After a full day of both demons training him, or grinding him into the dirt, he was tired and wishing he'd not asked Kurama to give him some of what they were drinking. It was stronger than it looked.

Having heard some of what was being said while twitching on the floor, Kuwabara commented. "In that Tournament thing coming up, are you guy serious about backing out?"

"No." Yusuke said.

"It depends." Kurama said.

"Yes." Hiei said.

Kuwabara knew they would all be there. "Guess we'll be an odd team."

"You have no idea," sighed Yusuke, on an exhale of cigarette smoke.

There was silence for a bit as they reflected on the possible futures. Most of them involved death and a whole lot of blood.

"You know Kuwabara, I don't think you're the only one that has a bad feeling about this." Kurama commented. Lately his dreams had been of a foreboding enemy coming, something about purple eyes.

"Here, here." Yusuke raised his can of beer.

"This is all kinda depressing." Kuwabara moved to a chair deciding that the floor was too uncomfortable. "I mean, all this about fighting and Tournaments and facing evil demons who don't die. What happened to the glass is half full? Why is it all glass empty here?"

There were sighs around the room as drinks were nursed and futures contemplated.

**----------------------------------------------------**

Yusuke ran laps around the temple that night, sweating buckets. He was supposed to have been sleeping, but the old lady had kicked him out of bed and now here he was, running around in circles. Wide circles.

"No daydreaming, half-ass," snapped Genkai, from right behind him. "You had better run faster, or I might catch up with you."

"Old bat," gritted out Yusuke from between his teeth, putting on another burst of speed.

Easily keeping up, Genkai smiled. He was going to be a terror to go against once she was done with him. Well, if there was anything left of him.

**----------------------------------------------------**

Kurama stared up at the starry sky. "Do you think it's worth going, Hiei?"

"Is it worth not going?" replied the fire demon "Besides I look forward to the challenge."

"You would." The kitsune picked out consolations above in the heavens.

They sat on the porch of the temple close together, their hands just barely touching.

Kurama was the first to rise. "I should turn in, morning isn't far away."

Reaching up, Hiei yanked him back down. "Your point?"

"I suppose I don't have one."

Both of them sat together on the porch leaning against each other. With the future so unsure and holding that much danger, there would be no more between them until the Tournament was over.

But that future at least, if they lived to see it, was brighter.

**----------------------------------------------------**

Kuwabara was doing his fifth inspection of the ceiling of the room from his mat on the floor. Genkai had come in not long ago, to kick Yusuke awake, but besides that, it had been quiet at the temple. Although occasionally Yusuke could be heard, panting his way around the temple with Genkai hard on his heels.

Now he could hear Kurama and Hiei on the porch talking softly to each other. He had to wonder what the two of them were going to do now that they were going to the Tournament; it wasn't like they could act the same in such a dangerous place. It was they, after all, who had pounded the fact that demons were traitorous into his head.

Then again, he was going to miss Yukina when he was gone. She was living at the temple, and he enjoying seeing her daily way too much. Kuwabara drifted off into sleep on that blissful thought.

**----------------------------------------------------**

They all had a lot to lose, but if they lived through the Dark Tournament, they would be the better for it. As one trained, another slept, and the last two sat up awake together, they all wondered if they would live to reap the benefits.

It could be a glass full or empty future, either way you looked for it. Really, it didn't matter if your glass was half one or the other, you got on with preparing for what you had to do. Unless, of course, your glass was smashed on the floor the night before.

**----------------------------------------------------**

_/End/_


End file.
